Rural & Co. is a training and technical assistance provider for rural health organizations deploying Rural Health Transformation funds. We work on adoption: whether the community understands a new program, trusts it, and uses it, and whether you can show what it changed when the results come up for review.
Ready for a scored read? Start with the Adoption Readiness Diagnostic →
Rural Health Transformation funds are landing in fifty states, and every state is still deciding what a strong deployment looks like. The organizations that show real adoption early become the reference point their state points to, and the ones best positioned when the next tranche is decided.
What a state agency can move on quickly is a program that arrives already scoped: a defined deliverable, a clear timeline, ready to run. That's what we built, and it's why this work tends to get authorized while other proposals are still being written.
First-year funds must be expended by September 30, 2026
There's still room to do this well. A scoped adoption program is one of the most straightforward places to put funds you haven't yet obligated, and one of the few that keeps paying into the cycles that follow.
The program put real weight behind telehealth, remote monitoring, chronic disease tools, and new access points across rural America. The organizations deploying those funds now face a harder question than the one the funding answered. Will the people these programs were built for actually use them? And when the results come up for review, will there be a clear account of the difference they made?
A remote-monitoring tool, a telehealth line, or a chronic disease program only delivers when a rural patient understands what it is, trusts the people behind it, and chooses to use it. Adoption has to be built in from the start. It decides whether any of the funding produces an outcome worth reporting.
Training and technical assistance for AI adoption and consumer-facing technology is an approved use. The question is rarely whether the work is fundable. It's which of these routes fits how your state is moving.
Rural & Co. works as a training and technical assistance provider inside a state's RHTP implementation, with the state holding the award. If your State Office of Rural Health or state health department is assembling its bench right now, this tends to be the most direct route.
A state rural health association, an AHEC, or a rural health network holds the award and writes Rural & Co. in as the training provider. This comes up often where a collaborative applicant is assembling a consortium and wants the adoption and workforce components carried by someone who's done them before.
You hold a subaward, or you're building an application for one. What we send you includes a scope appendix written in the vocabulary a reviewer is already looking for: the deliverables, the outcome metrics, the timeline. It lifts straight into your application, and it carries to an HRSA or foundation proposal without a rewrite.
Some states are running open solicitations. Some are assembling a bench. Some are routing funds through collaboratives and letting the consortium sort out the scope. The pathway that works in Maryland looks nothing like the one that works in Michigan, and knowing which is which is most of the work.
We track the solicitations as they go live and write up how each one is actually structured. Tell us your state and we'll share what we've found.
A scored read of where your funded program stands on the things that decide whether it gets used: whether your community understands it, trusts it, and acts on it. You come away with an Adoption Readiness Score, the gaps most likely to stall uptake, and a written recommendation. It's scoped to a single funded program, which makes it a natural first move inside a subaward.
See the Adoption Readiness Diagnostic →The package that turns a scored read into a fundable application. We take the gaps the Diagnostic surfaces and build the case a reviewer can score: outcome metrics stated in funder language, baselines and targets, and the narrative sections written to drop straight into a grant application or a state solicitation response. It maps to the program's approved uses, and it carries to an HRSA or foundation proposal without a rewrite.
Start a conversation →A full StoryFoundry Build aimed at a single funded program. We get the language, the experience, and the case right so the people it was built for actually take it up. In practice that means a patient who understands what the program is and enrolls without needing someone to walk them through it, and an organization that can show real uptake where it once had only a launch date.
See how the Build works →Ongoing technical assistance across the life of the program. Each year, when results are rescored and the next tranche is decided, you'll have a clear account of what the program changed and for whom, ready well before the deadline. That record is what carries you into the next round.
See the retainer tiers →The StoryFoundry RHTP Program Sheet lays out the adoption program the way a funder needs to see it: the scope, the deliverables, the outcome metrics, the timeline, and the budget lines. It's written so you can hand it to a finance lead or a state program officer and have it make sense on the first read.
Tell us where to send it and which state you're working in. If we've learned anything useful about how your state is running its solicitation, that'll come along with it.
Michigan Medicine · Children's Hospital of Philadelphia · UVM Health Network · American Nurses Association · Cystic Fibrosis Foundation
Vince Tardy founded Rural & Co. on a simple premise: clarity is worth more than cleverness. Twenty-five years across brand strategy, UX, digital storytelling, and AI systems, spent learning how the largest health organizations in the country make themselves understood. Rural & Co. exists to put that within reach of the rural programs doing the same work with a fraction of the runway.
If you're building a budget or an application, the program sheet is the place to begin. If you already hold funds and want to know whether the program you're standing up will actually get used, the Adoption Readiness Diagnostic will tell you. Either way you come away with something concrete.
Or tell us what your state is doing, and we'll share what we've found →